


Stumbling For Dying Stars

by bliumchik



Category: Firefly/Serenity
Genre: Community: apocalyptothon, Disasters, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-02
Updated: 2008-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 02:48:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliumchik/pseuds/bliumchik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The system's in chaos for vague electromagnetic reasons, and crashing into moons is just never fun. Prompt: "Apocalypse of your choice, old school damsel in distress fic. Gen or Femslash River/Inara or River/Kaylee. Apocalypse causes Serenity to crash, dire circumstances, the crew is all separated, noone knows if anyone else is okay. River, Kaylee or Inara is in real trouble, needs to be rescued. Someone almost dying and then not is great. Femslash damsel in distress rescue is also great." I did not manage to get to the femslash :P</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumbling For Dying Stars

“Gorramn shit-eating son of a-”

“Mal! Not in front of the baby!” Kaylee scolded.

Mal threw a forearm over his face and groaned.

The radio buzzed like a hacksaw.

“Cap'n? Did we crash?”

Mal heaved himself out of the pilot's chair with some difficulty, wincing as he put weight on the leg that had gotten slightly in the way of the second rock to come through the windshield.

“Yes, Jayne.” He said wearily. “As you have correctly deducted in that blinding pinnacle of a brain of yours, we did in fact crash. We made impact, we hit dirt, dirt hit us, the ship collided with a million tons of godforsaken rock much as your head, Jayne, sadly failed to collide with any walls along the way since you are _still conscious and asking gorramn stupid questions_ , Jayne.”

“Shhhh,” said Kaylee, bouncing Hoban Junior on her knee. “Don't listen to the nasty man, Junior.”

His crib had been a casualty of the fifth rock to come through the windshield, which was a damn pity since the thing cost more'n a piece of furniture rightly ought to set a ship's crew back by and they were unlikely to find a carpenter on a moon this tiny that didn't shoot first and ask questions later. Nobody came out here unless they were lookin' to some serious avoidance of their fellow man, and Mal, looking out the ex-windshield at the barren desert surrounding them, could gorramn well see why.

Of course Serenity had been doing a bit of avoidance herself or they wouldn't be anywhere near it, but judging by the bits of engine he'd seen flying past on the way down he figured it was going to be a home away from home for a good long while.

Time to take stock and make the best of a bad situation, then.

****

“Jayne, please tell me you are not saying what I think you're saying.”

“Mal-”

“ _Because_ , Jayne, if what you're trying to tell me is that _half my crew is mysteriously missing from this recently crashlanded ship_ , then I'm going to have to call Simon in to check your brain over, because I'm thinking you _did_ hit your head on impact after all.”

“That's what I'm tryin' to say, captain, Simon's _not here_.” Jayne scowled. “Him and River, they bundled into the other shuttle before we started reentry. They were gonna do some maneouvres or sommat.”

Before the meteor shower hit, then.

Mal had a horrible suspicion. A quick check of the controls revealed that either some serious circuitry was faulty or _both_ shuttles were disengaged.

“What the hell?”

“I dunno, Mal, it's right strange.”

“ _Where in god's name is my crew_!?”

“Cap'n-” Kaylee entered, biting her lip, still carrying the baby.

“Zoe?”

“Was in the cargo bay.”

“ _And?_ ”

“We, um.” Kaylee shifted HJ from one hip to the other nervously, looking away. “We- we mighta bounced a couple times when we landed, cap. We've got some serious crunch happening at the lower levels. It's gonna take me better part of a day to even get a start on opening her up.”

“This isn't happening.” Mal said calmly.

****

“This isn't happening.”

Simon frantically checked his sister's pulse again as though any amount of perfect vital signs and unbruised skin would render her awake and actually talking to him.

“There's no damage!” He whirled around and slammed a fist into the shuttle console. “Ow.”

River remained rigid as a statue in the pilot's seat, her eyes staring blankly ahead, hands gripping the controls like a vice. Her face bore the same look of intense concentration it had during the landing, weaving between giant falling rocks as though she knew what they were aiming at.

Simon knelt by her side again and touched her warm frozen face.

“Where are you?”

****

“Mal?”

Inara bit her lip as she listened to the harsh static coming ceaselessly from her radio.

“K-Kaylee? ...anyone?”

No response. Finally she flipped the radio off, shifted her arm in the makeshift sling she'd created from her bedding, and walked out of the shuttle.

“Well, well, well, boys. What have we here?”

...and right into an ambush. Of course.

****

“Don't worry, Junior, your mama's going to be just fine.”

Mal threw Jayne the evillest look he could find in his repertoire and the man shut his mouth mid-disbelieving snort.

“Aw, c'mon, Mal. You gotta teach a kid some real world, you might as well start early.”

Mal ignored him and gingerly bounced the baby on his knee, watching Kaylee work on the cargo bay doors. It killed him to admit it even to himself but Zoe wasn't alright. He couldn't think about that but the corollary was no good either. Serenity wasn't alright. The corridors creaked ominously when her few remaining crew put weight in the wrong places, most of the bunks were jammed solid shut and the bridge was a wreck. Kaylee had actually cried on seeing the engine room. Finding spare parts on this barren moon was going to be a million times harder than finding a carpenter, and a dockyard was sheer wishful thinking. The ship was a goner.

“Try and raise the cortex again, Jayne.” He said dully.

“Heck, Mal, you know it aint no use. It's them solar flares like they had on the newscasts last month. Everything's gone to hell.” Jayne spat. “Hah! I bet them fancy air-con-ditioning places in the core ain't doing so well now the electronics have gone haywire, right?”

Kaylee whirled around with a snarl (and a welding torch). Jayne took a nervous step back. “Them _hospitals_ in the core ain't doing so well either, Jayne Cobb, so why don't you, why don't you – why don't you just shut your trap and, and, and hand me that s-s-saw.” She wiped her face awkwardly on her shoulder and turned back to the door, steady hands.

****

The men dragged her back to their village more or less unmolested, if with less than compassionate handling of her injured left wrist. She was bound hand and foot and left in a room that appeared to have at various times served as a bar, a kitchen, a whorehouse, a nursery and possibly a stable, just from the smell.

Trying not to take deep breaths, Inara took stock of her situation. They hadn't bothered to blindfold her so she had a decent idea of the layout of the town – this large building was right in the centre and had had an armed guard on the door, so she assumed it belonged to some sort of leader. She was going to have to... negotiate, then.

God, she hoped the crew were alright.

****

“God _damn_ it, Kaylee, make that _go tsao de_ child stop that abominable noise!”

“He wants his mother!” Kaylee cried. “What am I supposed to _do_ , captain, I can't bring her back from- I. I can't magic her up out of thin air, okay!”

The screaming had been going on for over an hour. The kid had at least eaten something, but now Mal was sort of regretting that since the cracker had apparently given him boundless energy which was all exiting via his mouth.

Mal sniffed. “Oh, you have gotta be kidding me.”

So not _just_ his mouth then.

****

 _Night fell over the tiny moon, so provincial it didn't even rate a name. Aboard Serenity, three people and a baby slept fitfully beside the wreckage of a nearly-open door. Inside the chambers of the man known to most of the settlers only as Boss, a woman sat patiently awake, meditating and planning. On a grounded shuttle five miles north a young man curled up at his sister's feet, shivering, waiting. In ramshackle houses throughout the village, tired working folk slept the sleep of those with nothing better to do. Except for one, who sat up with a candle and a washcloth by the unconscious figure in her bed, keeping guard over her feverish charge, wondering._

****

Inara was getting sick and tired of waiting. Her elusive captor had made a brief appearance, during which she had established that yes, she was in a position to be leered at grossly, but her person appeared relatively safe for the moment. She was practically a prisoner of honour, in fact. The man had waved haughtily and apparently arranged for a servant girl to tend Inara's wounds (none improved by a night spent in tight ropes).

Inara tried to make eye contact with the girl, but her face was constantly lowered subserviently, watching her hands. Finally Inara took a chance on the guards waiting outside the door and, lowering her voice, said “Please. Has anyone else been captured?”

The girl looked up then, eyes like a startled doe. Inara tried to look reassuring.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” she continued in the same quiet, even tone. “Nobody will know if you just tell me a few things. Please. I need to find my friends.”

With a nervous glance at the door the girl whispered, “Nobody else. I- but- if you're looking for others that came down in the big storm?”

Inara nodded, heart in her throat.

The girl licked her lips, leaned forward. “I-”

That was when the door swung open for the return of the man in charge, and the girl leapt backwards, knocking over a basin full of cleaning water.

“Clumsy wench,” snarled the man, raising a hand to hit her as she cowered on the floor.

“Wait!” Cried Inara.

“Shut up,” growled her captor.

Inara composed herself, gave her best haughty sniff. “Is this how you train your servants on this godforsaken rock? Where I come from we never need lift a finger to our staff. Give her to me, I will make a proper maid of her.”

The man stared at her incredulously. He had a strong chin and a bright yellow shock of hair, but the dust of the harsh world had worn his face prematurely.

Inara raised an eyebrow. “It's clear you need a civilised woman's touch around here.”

She held her breath imperceptibly – and then the man began to smile.

****

“This dirt-rock is looking cheerier by the minute, wouldn't you say Junior?” Mal chucked the baby under the chin, pointedly ignoring the half-dozen men with firearms trained on him. Close up he could see they were a hodge-podge of makes and styles, like someone ransacked a surplus store – which was possibly exactly how they were armed. The troops were a rag-tag lot as well, ranging from an old fellow with shaky-looking legs to a boy about sixteen, struggling with the weight of his rifle.

“Now, you folks don't want to be interruptin' an innocent family outing, do you?” He finally turned to the men. Jayne was standing behind him, ready to draw on a moment's notice, and Kaylee was standing at his shoulder. He reached his free arm out and gathered her in showily. “This here's my wife, Kay, and that there's our bodyguard, Mad Dog Cobb.” He jerked his head back at Jayne, who showed teeth on cue. _Good dog_ , Mal thought, trying not to smirk.

“An's that yer kid?” Sniggered the leader, a big man with a pockmarked face and a grin like a roulette wheel. Junior waved a pudgy coffee-coloured finger at the men, smiling like a loon. He'd come to associate guns with Jayne picking him up and tossing him in the air. That was probably going to have to be trained out of him.

“Sure is,” Mal said breezily. “My boy Junior – spittin' image of his mother, wouldn't you say?”

****

Inara watched the servant girl, who had turned out to be called Jessie, airing out blankets. “That sounds about right,” she said. “Can you take me to her?”

“Oh, gosh no!” Jessie gasped. “You can't leave without the Boss permission, ma'am, no way I can swing that.”

Inara smiled reassuringly. “No, of course not, I wouldn't put you in danger. No matter – I'm sure your Boss won't stop a midwife from attending to a birth.”

Jessie wrinkled her brow. “A birth, ma'am?”

****

“Are you _impugning_ my wife's honour!?” roared Mal, swiftly passing the baby over to Kaylee and drawing his pistol. Jayne was way ahead of him. Half the troop had lowered their weapons for laughing and were easy pickings – soon enough it was all over...

Oh. He'd forgotten about the leader.

“Mal!” Kaylee cried, struggling against the arm around her neck.

“One move and your lovely _lady_ gets it, and the brat, too.” sneered crater-face, waving his knife entirely too close to Mal's crew for comfort.

“Hwun dan-”

“Jayne!” Mal raised an arm.

“Looks like we have ourselves an _im-pass-eh_ , huh?” The man said, grinning.

Mal winced. “I'm hating that word more every time I hear it.”

****

“I insist that the men wait outside.” Inara cried indignantly.

The guard leader looked torn.

“Do you really want to watch a woman give birth, sarge?” Asked a green-looking kid.

The man made a face and waved Inara into the hut. She kept her expression carefully neutral until she was inside. When she saw the figure on the bed, though, she dropped her basket-full of “essential midwifery supplies” and rushed to the bedside.

“Zoe!”

****

“Now I think we should all just calm down and talk about this like civilised people,” suggested Mal.

“I think not.” The blond man smiled and gestured to the guard still holding Kaylee and Junior at knifepoint. “I believe I hold all the cards here, gentlemen. Now... what are you doing on my planet?”

“Vacationing.” Mal answered glibly.

The man stood up with a snarl. “You will not be so insolent when your precious family is bleeding at your feet, dog!”

Mal clenched his fists and ground his teeth ineffectively. Dammit, there was no way out!

Suddenly a door slammed open and a young guardsman marched in, dragging a young woman by the arm.

“I thought I was not to be disturbed, Simpson!” roared the blond man.

“This slut betrayed you, Boss.” Simpson tossed the girl to the floor like a rag-doll. “That wasn't no midwife we found yesterday.”

“Midwife?” said Jayne.

“ _Inara_ ,” whispered Kaylee.

“You're all in this together, aren't you!” hissed the blond man. “Spies from the alliance trying to take away what's rightfully mine! Well, we'll see about that. Bring them!”

****

“Mal?” Zoe coughed weakly. Bandages covered her head and chest in swathes.

A nervous looking red-haired woman stood by the window, wringing her hands. “You never said there was _more_ of you, gawd. The Boss is going to have my ears for this!”

“Oh, honey.” Inara placed a hand on Zoe's forehead. “What happened?”

“I think I- think I fell out of a space-ship, sir.”

Inara looked at the redhead, who shrugged. “She been talking to people ain't there since morning. Found her when I was out gatherin' herbs. Cleaning wounds and deliverin' babies is about all I know from my ma, but she's got some sort of infection. Swelling's gone down... look, just get her out of here, okay? I don't need this on my head.”

“Zoe, honey, can you stand?” Inara gently coaxed her friend up out of the bed. Zoe practically fell against Inara's neck, mumbling “Wash? Zat you? Wha'd I say bout keepin' the baby up...” before trailing off into blankness.

Inara pursed her lips. This was going to take some doing. “Thank you,” she said to the redhead. “...there's a back way out of here, right?”

“Wrong!” The door slammed open.

Inara jumped and clutched Zoe tighter. It was the guard captain. “Wait, I- this woman is very sick, we need- I need-”

“We know all about you, spy,” sneered the captain, shoving all three women none too gently out of the hut. “Look – we've brought all your friends to visit.”

Outside it was growing on dusk. Mal gave her a little wave. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Mama!” Junior yelled happily.

“Hoban?” Zoe stirred in Inara's arms, trying to step forward.

“I knew it!” Cried the blond man, pointing at Kaylee with his pistol. She flinched, holding Junior tighter. “You're not this kid's mother at all! Well, you can tell the Alliance I'm not going back to that prison, not for nothing – not until they're willing to deal on my terms!”

There was a brief silence.

“...what?” Mal said eventually.

The blond man started pacing. “No, forget it. It's too dangerous. You're all better off dead, I can't show them any weakness-”

“Whoah there now!” Mal said. “I think you've got the wrong idea about-”

“The hell with you, Alliance scum!” The blond man suddenly aimed at Mal and cocked his pistol.

“Mal!” Cried Kaylee.

“Hwun dan, put down that gun and face me like a man!” Yelled Jayne.

“...” said the blond man. “What's that noise?”

Mal looked up. Rising up like some sort of earthen god was a sight he thought he'd never see again – an honest to god space-ship. “What the...”

The blond man's face was turning red. “That's my ship!” He yelled, practically jumping up and down.

“This ship has been commandeered,” came a familiar voice over the loudspeaker.

Mal sagged in relief. “Simon.”

“Everyone is to lay down their weapons immediately or we will open fire.”

There were numerous clanking noises as the guards dropped their guns like hot potatoes.

“No!” Shrieked the blond man. “This isn't happening! That's my ship!”

A second familiar voice rang out through the air. “Finders keepers,” River said, and giggled and giggled.

Mal felt sort of like laughing himself.


End file.
